What Can We Learn from The Accusations Against Woody Allen?

February 15, 2014 Comments Off on What Can We Learn from The Accusations Against Woody Allen?

What Can We Learn from The Accusations Against Woody Allen?

The current public drama of accusation being played out between Woody Allen’s adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow and Woody Allen is a familiar dynamic to child abuse professionals who work in the family court arena. Unfortunately, child abuse experts know that family court is a difficult venue for a child who alleges sexual abuse to be protected. While in Dylan Farrow’s case, the Judge protected her, in many cases children are forced into ongoing contact despite their allegations….

Many people believe that if someone is guilty of abuse, he would be in jail. After reviewing numerous studies, Bolen (2001) found that offenders may be convicted in only 1-2% of cases of suspected abuse known to professionals. (see Child sexual abuse: Its scope and our failure. New York: Kluwer Academic)….

Many people believe that accusations of abuse during divorce are just a strategy to win custody. In fact, divorce is a logical consequence of finding out a partner is abusive and abuse claims during custody disputes are just as likely to be valid as those made at any other time….

Another important myth is the belief that a person who both appears and acts normal could not be a child molester….In truth, most perpetrators are otherwise normal appearing and acting members of society. Woody Allen’s public presentation, the way he looks and his level of success in his field should not lead people to make assumptions about his private conduct. In other words, Dylan Farrow’s credibility is completely unrelated to Woody Allen’s likeability as a person or talent as a filmmaker….

Custody decision
Allen v. Farrow 197 AD2d 327 (1994)
Appellate decision by New York Supreme Court denying Woody Allen’s petition for custody of his three children – including Dylan.

EXCERPTS: “…the testimony given at trial by the individuals caring for the children that day, the videotape of Dylan made by Ms. Farrow the following day and the accounts of Dylan’s behavior toward Mr. Allen both before and after the alleged instance of abuse, suggest that the abuse did occur.”….

Six Reasons Why Dylan Farrow is Highly Credible
February 3, 2014, The Naked Law
by Lisa Bloom, Avvo.com Legal Advisor and Analyst

Bloom, a lawyer and legal analyst who has represented child sexual abuse victims for decades, states why she finds Dylan’s story to be highly credible.

EXCERPT: “4. Woody Allen not only has had a long-term, well-established interest in young girls, he’s never seen anything wrong with it. His film Manhattan, in which he stars, features a forty-two year old man in a sexual relationship with a seventeen year old high school student without any compunction whatsoever. (Don’t tell me things were different in 1979. Plenty of us opposed sexual abuse then too.) And more significantly, he demonstrated an outrageous ability to prey on Mia’s family by secretly engaging in a sexual relationship with Dylan’s teenaged sister Soon-Yi and taking explicit pornographic pictures of her. (He ultimately married her.)….

Canoff, an attorney who has prosecuted, evaluated and consulted on child sexual abuse cases for over 15 years, corrects misinformation in the media that is being touted as reasons Allen should be exonerated and Dylan (or Mia Farrow) either blamed or pitied. Canoff rebutts an article in The Daily Beast that took Allen’s side and the arguments favoring Allen.

EXCERPT: “2. The allegations arising in the context of a custody dispute. Many have bought into the pernicious myth that children are easily and often coached to fabricate allegations of sexual abuse, usually by their mother against a targeted male figure. This is a particularly attractive idea against Mia Farrow, whose perceived bitterness at Allen’s actions with Soon-Yi Previn fuel the myth. In fact, sex abuse allegations made during custody disputes have about the same very low rate of false reporting as in any other case. Further, the risk of suggestibility drops off sharply after around the age of 5, two years before Dylan reported.”….http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/blog/df.html